


Fire, brimstone, and pizza

by silverchitauri



Series: Marvel One-Shots of Our Favorite Team [3]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Absolute Failure, Bad Cooking, Baking, Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Clint Barton Feels, Clint Barton Is a Good Bro, Domestic Fluff, Exasperation, Fluff and Humor, Food, Holidays, Human Disaster Clint Barton, More Pizza, Natasha Romanov Is Not A Robot, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Pizza, Team Bonding, Team Dynamics, Team Fluff, Team as Family, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Is a Good Bro, how to do life clint barton fashion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-12-26 11:40:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18281837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverchitauri/pseuds/silverchitauri
Summary: Pizza.It looks so freakin’ easy on the cooking shows.But here was Clint, surrounded by flour, eggs, and pepperoni slices scattering the floor and he has to wonder.Is pizza-making witchcraft of some sort?





	Fire, brimstone, and pizza

**Author's Note:**

> This is a trope that needs to be used more, because who doesn’t love a good Human Disaster Clint Barton story?

Clint Barton was no expert in cooking.

He was good at plenty of things: archery, riflery, hand-to-hand combat, acrobatics, the list goes on.

Cooking, baking, or any other denominations that require tastebuds and artistic flair? Nope.

Before he moved into the Avengers, he had subsided solely on instant noodles and mass-prepared meals courtesy of SHIELD. No fuss, no muss. Just eat and run.

So the million dollar question: how the hell had he gotten stuck doing this?

Christmas. He blamed Christmas.

Actually, take that back. Not Christmas, per say, but Christmas with the Avengers.

Most co-workers had ugly sweater competitions or played Secret Santa (at least, that’s what Clint had learned from _The Office_ ). Maybe they would put up decorations on their desks.

For the past decade or so, Clint hadn’t really celebrated Christmas. He wasn’t that religious, and usually he was on a mission during the holidays.

The extent of his Christmas celebration was his annual Christmas gift to Natasha and a cheap, ironic gift for Phil, Fury, and Hill.

Last year, Fury had gotten an eyepatch that had googly eyes and stick-on snowflakes attached.

This year was different. Apparently, surprise surprise, Tony was a bit of a partier.

Christmas was no exception. Every day during the Advent, he had a little planned things for them all.

Gift wrapping Cap’s shield while he slept, putting pom-poms on Nat’s guns (didn’t end well), and decorating an eight-foot-tall tree with all of Clint’s arrows.

 _Clint’s_   _arrows._ He broke the fletching on several, which was not cool.

That was his contribution to the group, and, in return for his kindness, he expected each of the team to cook dinner for all of them at least one night before Christmas arrived.

Cap had gone first, and apparently he was actually a pretty decent cook.

His old fashioned side had come out, and his meal was, according to Cap, a common dish during the Great Depression: a creamy, melt in your mouth potato casserole with cheese and bacon sprinkled on top.

The goody-two-shoes even made dessert for everyone: a green tomato pie that was actually delicious despite its name.

Bucky was less extravagent. Like Cap, he made something potatoey: W.P.A. soup, he called it. He didn’t make dessert, but Tony had some gourmet chocolates on hand (of course he did).

Natasha had made a fantastic Afghan rice/kofta/corn dish. Wanda, some cool looking kebabs. Vision made some sort of paprika dish that was apparently the only thing he knew how to make. Bruce had some sort of chicken soup, Rhodey had a fancy pasta thingy, Sam had pork chops, and even Thor made venison.

_Venison._

Everyone was decent at cooking, it seemed like. Nobody messed up. Even fifteen-year-old Peter Parker managed spaghetti pretty well.

In other words, Clint was set to fail.

He had waited until the last possible minute to do his meal, and before he knew it, Christmas Eve was tomorrow.

Back to the problem at hand.

He had chosen pizza. Why? It was the food of the gods, and it couldn’t be that hard to make.

Easy, he’d thought.

Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrongwrongwrongwrong.

Clint was no expert in cooking, but as he stared down at his monstrous creation, even he suspected that pizzas weren’t supposed to look like _that._

He’d followed the instructions. Water, flour, yeast, salt shortening, veggie oil, chopped onion, tomato paste, more salt, blah blah blah. All the ingredients blurred together...

...and ended up piled in a bowl in a mushy mess.

He checked the recipe sheet. According to the instructions for  _Jane’s Homemade Pizza,_  he should have a doughy ball, “malleable to the touch” and dusted with flour.

He looked back at his Failure Bowl.

Nope. Not even close.

Maybe he got the seasonings wrong.

Tony Stark had an extravagent array of...well, everything. That included a spice cupboard that seemed miles long. Kilometers. Planets. Clint had seen smaller deserts with fewer grains of sand, and he had been to the Gobi Desert.

According to the recipe, he needed pepper, garlic powder, dried basil, dried oregano, dried marjoram, chili powder, red pepper flakes, and ground cumin, whatever the hell that was.

”What the hell is cumin?” he asked aloud, looking over at Natasha who was reading a magazine.

Without looking up she replied, “It’s a spice that comes from a plant in the parsley family that’s native to the Middle East and India.”

 _Great. Whatever that means._  He turned back to the recipe and his sad bowl.

Maybe it needed another egg.

He cracked the egg on the side of the bowl the way Nat had shown him: index and middle fingers on top, thumb on the bottom.

_Splat!_

Now he had egg all over his shirt, a bowl of sadness, and still no pizza.

He sighed in resignation. “Nat, how the heck am I supposed to do this?”

”Make a pizza.”

He rolled his eyes, wiping his hands on one of Tony’s pristine dish towels. He left egg-colored smears all over them and felt discreetly triumphant. “Very helpful. I mean, how do you make this” —he gestured at the mess— “into that?” He pointed at the recipe picture.

She let out a deep breath of a long suffering victim before slipping off her kitchen stool and trotting over to him. She had on last year’s Christmas present from him: a pair of socks with avocados on them.

Some people thought Natasha Romanoff didn’t have emotions, but Clint knew better. She did have emotions, did show affection, just in her own way. Like wearing socks someone gave you, or helping an idiot friend make pizza.

Leaning over the recipe, she jabbed a finger on one line. Clint squinted at it.

It read: _Pour warm water into a bowl. Pour yeast in and let sit until yeast is dissolved into creamy mixture._

“Did that,” Clint said.

She jabbed the next line. _Put salt, shortening, and flour into a large bowl and stir the yeast in._

“Did that, too.”

She shot him an exasperated look. “Clint, they probably didn’t mean _all at once_. Maybe one at a time. First the yeast, then the other stuff after you’ve finished.”

”Who the hell has time for yeast and flour and salt and shortening to dissolve?”

”Not all of it, Clint! Just the yeast. _Then_  pour them together.”

He squinted at the recipe, following along in his head. “Yeah, from what I remember, I did that. I put the stupid yeast in the water, then poured in the flour and stuff.”

”No, you didn’t. I watched you. You poured yeast in with cold water. I saw the tap handle you used. Then you waited about five seconds before slamming every single ingredient you had into the bowl.”

”Same thing. And how were you watching and reading a magazine at the same time?” he shot back, knowing how petulant he sounded. They both knew that she could easily do both those things with someone shooting at her.

She rolled her eyes and went back to reading.

Ten seconds went by before she added, “And you should’ve chosen something easier than pizza.”

 

By the time three o’clock in the afternoon rolled around, Clint was in full on panic mode.

He had ditched his bowl of sadness (good riddance) and settled for spewing all the ingredients everywhere in a cooking-induced frenzy.

Flour in the bowl?

He poured it in. It poofed, defying gravity, back into his face.

Fail

Cracking an egg?

He grabbed the egg and slammed it onto the bowl’s rim.

_Splat._

Fail.

Mixing oil in a saucepan?

Forget it. Onions and oil splattered everywhere.

Fail.

By around three-twenty, Clint had pretty much given up all hopes of being able to pizza.

 _It’s settled,_  he thought. _The people in_ Top Chef _are sorcerers with arcane secrets._

So he sat on the barstool, chin on his folded arms, just staring forlornly at the devastation.

This day could not get any worse.

Some sadistic higher being must’ve heard his thoughts, because, lo and behold, Tony Stark walked in at that moment.

The billionaire was probably one of the most out of place things Clint had seen all day, with his Black Sabbath T-shirt and tinted glasses standing in the middle of the ruined kitchen, an expression of absolute horror on his face.

 _Right,_  Clint reminded himself dully. _You’re gonna have to explain this._

Sure enough, the first quiet words out of Stark’s mouth were, “What the _hell_  happened here?”

Usually, Clint would have some clever response or snappy comeback that immediately either lightened the situation or made it a billion times worse. Not today.

Clint slumped further into his chair. “Holiday cooking,” he mumbled, and Tony’s eyes shot to him so fast he nearly flinched.

”Cooking.” Tony’s words were careful, measured. Like he was restraining himself from saying many, many horrible things. 

“Yeah.” Clint tried to scramble for something else, something that might make things not as chokingly awkward. Like an apology, for instance, or an explanation. Nope. No luck. He had never been good with words. “Uh, yeah. Don’t know how to pizza.”

He braced himself, waiting for Tony to explode. To go ballistic and scream at him for trashing his kitchen. For using all the supplies.

To carve his words into foot-long blades so sharp they would cut Clint to the bone. To insult, jab, curse, mope, throw a hissy fit. Build a superbot that could kill Clint.

Do  _something_.

Even just make a stupid, snide remark, Tony Stark style.

But nothing happened.

Not even a blink.

Clint felt like his brain was short circuiting. How was Tony not even making a snide remark? He loved snide remarks. That man lived off of sarcasm.

“Um,” he said, but his voice wasn’t working properly.

Had he suddenly been dropped into a weird dimension?

He watched in utter confusion as Tony picked his way over to the counter in complete silence, picking up the soaked pizza recipe and turning it over in his hands.

_What was going on?_

Clint stared at Tony, who stared at the recipe.

”You ever cooked before?”

”Uh. No.”

 

“Then why’d you pick pizza?”

”...’cause I like pizza?”

”Hmph,” Tony grumbled, flipping the sheet over again with a concentrated frown. “Looks like you might need some help.” 

“Uh, maybe, but Nat’s busy, and I don’t want to bother her anymore—“

”Not from her. From me.”

_Who was this man and what did he do with Tony Stark?_

It was just like the _Body Snatchers._ Clint slid off his stool, watching Tony. He half expected the billionaire to grow another head or transform into some extraterrestrial.

It never happened. Instead, Tony set down the recipe in a little circle of dry countertop (the rest was gross) and grabbed a few rags from under the sink, an all purpose surface-cleaner, and an entire roll of paper towels.

Clint goggled as Tony mopped up the mess like a model citizen until the inventor glared at him and held out a free rag. Clint took it and began cleaning alongside Tony.

As they set about cleaning up the damage that Hurricane Pizza had wreaked, Clint just watched.

This wasn’t a side of Stark he’d ever seen. The Stark he knew would gripe and complain, never cleaning up his mess, never taking responsibility, never helping others of his own volition in menial, everyday tasks.

New Stark had a brow furrowed in concentration as he sprayed _Clorox_  on the grimy countertop, wiping methodically after each spritz.

Spritz, wipe, spritz, wipe.

Cleaning was something Clint could do pretty well. Cleaning up crime scenes, cleaning up evidence, cleaning up the chocolate crumbs on his desk so Fury wouldn’t see them.

They made quick work of it, and soon the two of them stood with a mop, a dirty bucket up water, several dirty rags, and a shiny, sparkly, egg-free kitchen. 

Clint stood awkwardly for a second before turning to Stark, but Stark was already yanking bowls and spoons and pans and rolling pins from every nook and cupboard.

Clint cleared his throat, and Stark paused, looking annoyed.

 _That_  looked more natural.

Clint held up the dirty water, mop, and rags. Stark waved him off with the spatula. “Go dump the water and put the rags in the washing machine.”

Easier said than done. Pouring out the water was simple, just a sloshy trip to the sink, but the laundry room was floors below.

Clint jogged to the elevator and pressed the laundry room’s floor. The doors _ping_ ed closed, and Friday’s warm Irish lilt drifted down from the speakers.

”Agent Barton,” she said.

”Hey, Friday.”

”Having fun with eggs?” she teased, and Clint could practically picture her smiling.

”Yeah, yeah. Get the laughs out now.”

”Nobody’s laughing, Agent Barton.” But the AI sounded highly amused for someone who didn’t find it funny.

The doors slid open, and he followed the hallway to the laundry room.

The laundry room was more fancy than most people’s homes. Clint rolled his eyes. Leave it to Tony Stark to make a room where clothes were swilled around in soapy water as high tech and cutting edge as possible.

But when Clint popped open the top of one of the washers, he observed a noticeably large stack of dishrags, not unlike the ones Clint was holding.

 _Huh,_  he thought before slamming the door. He glanced curiously at the security cameras, but Friday stayed silent, so he brushed it off and left.

 

Back in the kitchen, Tony was already working a ball of dough on a floury cutting board, kneading the perfect looking concoction that bore no resemblance to Clint’s Failure Bowl.

After a couple of unsuccessful attempts to help (Tony pushed him away), Clint settled for just watching, completely amazed as the closed off team leader expertly stuck the dough in the oven, filled another bowl with warm water the way Clint hadn’t, and repeated the dough making process over and over and over again.

He was making, Clint realized, enough pizza to feed the Never-Ending Vortexes that were Cap and Thor’s stomachs, as well as feed all the other Avengers that ate normally.

In other words: a crap ton of pizza.

And he had done it without question, almost like he knew what he had to do the moment he saw Hurricane Pizza.

Like he’d done it a thousand times.

The puzzle clicked.

”Hey Tony?” Clint shifted forward on his seat.

”Mmm?”

”So I went downstairs to the washing machine. Really cool by the way, but anyway, I saw a bunch of cleaning rags in the wash. Do you usually use forty cleaning rags in a week?”

Tony shook his head, forcefully beating down on the dough like his life depended on it.

”So I’m guessing that Peter Parker didn’t whip up that spaghetti all by himself.”

Tony paused. “He did.”

”Oh.” Crap. Maybe he was the only one that needed help—

“He was one of the only ones.”

_“Oh.”_

Tony paused in his dough-violence to look incredulously at Clint. “You think I seriously force those stupid pranks on you guys and _expect_  you to want to cook me dinner?”

Clint winced. “It kinda seemed that way.”

Tony rolled his eyes in disgust like Clint had just suggested he supported dog fights. Then he went back to slamming the dough.

”Who else needed help?”

A pause, then, “Everyone but Peter, Steve, Romanoff, and Barnes. Wanda needed minimal help; she actually knew quite a lot. Vision wasn’t too great. Bruce delivered pizzas for a while, but he doesn’t know jack about making food. Thor knows how to kill stuff, not how to cook it. Wilson wasn’t too bad. Rhodes was almost as hopeless as you.”

”Gee, thanks.” But a weird kind of warmth radiated from his chest.

All those dinners had tasted unique, great, even. Clint would’ve never been able to tell that Tony had made most of them and then given credit to everyone else but himself. 

Tony Stark was like Nat: he had a heart, it was just usually hard to find.

 

“Hey,” Clint found himself saying. He got off the stool. Tony looked up. “Are you including yourself in this cooking challenge thing? ‘Cause if so, you’ve done more than enough.”

”Course I am, Barton. Tomorrow night. Big Christmas Eve dinner.”

He couldn’t tell if Tony looked excited about the prospect or not, but he had a firm stubborn set in his jaw that Clint would more expect to see from Cap.

Clint thought about telling him that Nat and the rest could take over. But Tony had a very weird sense of pride. A kind of pride that got boosted by driving race cars in France, and lowered when people like Fury took over for him.

This, Clint realized, was Tony’s Christmas gift.

But the least Clint could do was say,

”Thank you.”

Tony’s shoulders relaxed a little as he let down his guard. Tossing Clint a brief smile, he turned back to his pizzas.

 

That night during dinner, Tony was an asshole again, all brash statements and bragging. But nothing about the dinner came up. And each time someone congratulated Clint on the dinner, Nat and he would exchange pointed looks.

After the meal, he bumped into Tony in the hallway as they went their separate ways, but not before Clint said,

“Let me help make dessert. I can burn cookies or something. They’ll taste great.”

Tony smiled.

Burnt cookies it was.

**Author's Note:**

> I kinda need more feels in my life.


End file.
